Car check insurance: what askMID answers, and what buyers really need
Insurance checks answer two different questions, and mixing them up wastes money. "Is this car insured right now" is answered by askMID, the Motor Insurers' Bureau's public query of the Motor Insurance Database: free for your own vehicle, and the route the police themselves use at the roadside. "Has this car been written off by an insurer" is a different question entirely: write-off history lives in the insurers' claims registers, and reading it is part of what the paid full checks in the table charge for.
- median advertised price of a single full car check
- £14.99
- vendors with a verified published price
- 2
- check types with measured demand
- 2
Figures on this page come from the KnownVehicle Car Check Price Index: 2 vendors with a verified published price, median advertised single full check £14.99, checked against each vendor's own page.
- 2 vendor product pages verifiedevery figure matched verbatim to the vendor's page
- Quoted and dated, never estimatedlast verification pass 2026-08-26
- 2 check types coveredeach with measured search demand behind it
Advertised prices, verified
| Vendor | Full check | Basic check | 3-check bundle | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Car Check | £9.99/check | £3.99/check | £14.99/3 checks | totalcarcheck.co.uk | August 2026 |
| HPI Check | £19.99/check | £9.99/check | £29.99/3 checks | home.hpicheck.com | August 2026 |
The two insurance questions, and who answers each
- Your own vehicle: askMID, free. The MIB's askMID service confirms whether your own vehicle appears on the Motor Insurance Database. Run it after taking out or changing a policy: a car missing from the MID gets stopped by number-plate recognition even when the policy is real, because the roadside check reads the database, not your documents.
- Someone else's vehicle: only after an accident. The MIB provides a route to another vehicle's insurance details when you have been involved in an accident with it: that is what the database exists for. It is not a general lookup, and a buyer cannot use it to inspect a seller's cover; a seller's insurance tells you nothing about the car anyway.
- Write-off history: the paid layer. Whether a vehicle was ever an insurance write-off (and in which category) comes from the insurers' claims records, which the paid vendors query. A repaired write-off can be legal, roadworthy and materially cheaper; what matters is knowing before you pay a clean-history price.
- Write-off categories, in one line each. Categories A and B are ended vehicles: A is scrap outright, B a shell that must be crushed though parts may live on. S is structural damage professionally repairable; N is non-structural damage. S and N cars return to the road lawfully: priced correctly, they are simply a different purchase.
Why a buyer checks write-off status rather than the seller's policy
A seller's live insurance policy expires the moment the car changes hands and tells you nothing about the vehicle's condition. Write-off history is the opposite: it is permanent, it follows the vehicle across owners and plate changes, and it moves the fair price of the car by real money. It is the insurance fact a buyer is actually paying to learn.
The paid checks in the table above carry the write-off marker and its category alongside finance and theft data, at the advertised prices verified against each vendor's own page. On any car whose price looks slightly too good, the category question is usually where the answer lives.
Driving away: the insurance fact buyers forget about themselves
The purchase checks out, the money moves. And the car still cannot legally leave the seller's driveway until it is insured in the buyer's name. Arrange cover before collection day: insurers issue policies starting the same day, and the MID updates from the insurer's own feed.
If you run askMID on your new car immediately and it has not appeared yet, that is normal database latency rather than a missing policy: carry your policy confirmation for the first days, and re-check until the record shows.
Common questions
- How do I check if a car is insured?
- Your own vehicle: free on askMID, the Motor Insurers' Bureau's query of the Motor Insurance Database: the same database roadside number-plate recognition reads. Another vehicle's details are available through the MIB only after an accident involving it.
- Can I check if a car I want to buy is insured?
- The seller's insurance is irrelevant to you as a buyer: it ends with the sale and describes the owner, not the car. The insurance fact that matters when buying is write-off history, which the paid checks in the table above carry with its category.
- What is an insurance write-off category?
- The insurer's classification of a claimed vehicle: A (scrap) and B (break for parts) never return to the road; S (structural) and N (non-structural) may be repaired and lawfully driven. A repaired S or N car is legitimate: the point of the check is paying the right price for one.
- Why is my car not showing on askMID?
- New and amended policies reach the Motor Insurance Database from the insurer's feed with some delay. If cover is days old, re-check shortly and carry your policy confirmation meanwhile; if a long-standing policy is missing, tell your insurer: the roadside check reads the database, not your paperwork.
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Cite or embed this figure
The median advertised price of a single full car check in the GB car check market was £14.99 in August 2026, across 2 verified vendor product pages recorded in KnownVehicle Car Check Price Index.
Cite as: "KnownVehicle Car Check Price Index", updated 2026-08-26, https://knownvehicle.com/car-check-insurance/.